a. Field of Invention
The invention relates generally to components for pick up trucks, vans, SUVs and other such vehicles with flat beds, and more particularly, to a transfigurable access sliding tray for facilitating access to items and areas disposed generally out of a user's reach, with the tray being configurable for further facilitating loading and unloading of items.
b. Description of Related Art
As is known in the art, pick up trucks, vans, SUVs and other such vehicles generally include a flat bed or similar area for permitting storage of items generally larger than or in a greater capacity than typical sedan automobiles. Pick up trucks for example generally include a flat bed accessible by reaching over the side walls of the bed area, or by a user climbing onto the bed area. For pick up trucks including a bed cover or when a tailgate is lowered, such access to items and areas disposed adjacent the truck's cab area can be quite difficult and time-consuming. Such is of course true for vans, SUVs and other such vehicles.
Further, loading of heavy objects into such vehicles can also be difficult in that a user must lift an object and then slide the object into the vehicle. For excessively heavy objects, such a task can be virtually impossible for certain users, and can even lead to injury if a user is not properly trained or capable of lifting, loading and/or unloading an heavy object.
In an effort to facilitate such loading and unloading of heavy objects, the art includes a variety of extendable bed mounted devices which can be extended or retracted as needed.
For example, referring to FIGS. 1, 3 and 5 of U.S. Pat. No. 4,990,049 to Hargrove, there is disclosed an extendable bed liner which functions as a ramp for loading cargo as well as a workbench for further operations. The Hargrove bed liner is however mounted to the vehicle bed, which limits its operable width as well as the versatility of the bed liner for loading and unloading objects.
Additional bed liners are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,090,335, 5,829,945, 5,924,753 and 6,464,274. For example, referring to FIG. 1 of U.S. Pat. No. 5,924,753 to DiBassie, there is disclosed a bed extender 10 including telescoping pieces 22 that attach to the inner side of pickup bed 3 extending the vehicle cargo space. However, the bed extender does not function as a ramp for loading or unloading cargo, or as a workspace.
It is therefore desirable to provide a vehicle bed liner which may be readily mountable to existing vehicles or vehicles in an assembly line without requiring significant modification to the vehicle structure. It is also desirable to provide a vehicle bed liner which is capable of a variety of operations including, for example, extending/retracting from a vehicle bed, facilitating loading and unloading of objects and being operable as a work bench, with the overall design being simple and economical to manufacture, assemble and use.